The Conservative Design Philosophy of Dark Souls

The nature of the Dark Souls gameplay system has been endlesslyanalyzed, so I don’t want to belabor the particular merits of the series’ brilliantly “fair” combat, elegant level design, haunting atmosphere, opaque yet fascinating lore, wholly original online system, extensive replayability, beautiful visuals, and general level of astounding mechanical-narrative coherency. Slowly but surely the Souls franchise has emerged as one of the most influential series of the modern video game era, with small indies like Salt and Sanctuary to AAA titans like Witcher 3breaking down and integrating components of the Souls design into their systems. This is an enormous accomplishment which cannot be understated.

Instead I want to draw attention to series’ overall design philosophy. That is, the process by which From Software creates and directs sequels within the ongoing series and its spin-offs…”